Cod with salsa and feta
I usually have little or no luck cooking fish. I’m good with bivalves and crustaceans, even cephlapods…but anything with scales and gills totally eludes any culinary excellence in my hands. However, in my pursuit to improve my nutrition I continue to try. My most common mistake with fish is to overcook it into a mush. Trial and error has taught me that frozen cod filets have a texture, when cooked, that I find acceptable. Plus they’re cost effective, easy to find, and nutritionally excellent.
Really this isn’t a recipe at all…this is me just showing off a picture of my most perfect fish dish ever. It’s cod with salsa and feta cheese, baked for about 20 minutes and then served. I hesitate to offer any cooking advice on how to create this fine meal because it seems like it may have been a fluke…I mean really, good fish…from my own kitchen…no way!
The cod was purchased at Costco and is each portion is individually wrapped and sealed in plastic. I ran cool water over the frozen, wrapped portions while I assembled the other ingredients. That may have taken all of 10 minutes and I probably turned them over half way through. Once they were less frozen I arranged them in a shallow baking dish with some olive oil rubbed over them. I then spooned on a large amount of fresh salsa, also purchased at Costco. Then I crumbled on some locally produced goat’s milk feta, shoved it into a 350° oven and baked it until the internal temperature of the fish reached 140°.
I attribute the success of this dish to several things…the salsa from Costco is excellent, almost better than my own in late August, the cheese from my friend Diana is superb, I like cod, and I used my trusty thermometer to gauge when the fish was cooked and therefore I didn’t screw it up.
The best part about this dish is the flavor. The cod is firm and almost sweet, the salsa adds a fabulous mouthful of zestiness and the cheese is fabulous…the little crusty brown bits have a savory flavor that compliments the other components. Plus it’s low fat, low cal, quick and easy. I love it!
Usinger sausages
Somehow I’ve managed to make a big mistake, I’m not sure how it happened but I hang my head in shame. I’ve lived in Wisconsin for 8 years and I’m just now finding out about Usinger’s sausages. It seems unthinkable… all the sausages I could have eaten but didn’t. I promise to make up for lost time though, they are that good.
I’ve always been crazy about sausages, ever since the ’80s when Bruce Aidell introduced the Bay Area to his delightful and tasty sausage blends. Then as per usual many other companies jumped into the fray seeing that they could make a fast buck and many, many, bad sausages were made. Here in town our Whole Foods makes the worst sausages on earth…they disgust me they are so bad. I know that might sound harsh, but really, they’re awful!
But let me tell you, these Usinger’s sausages are fabulous. We tried the chicken cordon bleu, named as such because they have some ham and cheese in them, and they have a juicy, big flavor that just knocked us over. They’re already cooked so I heated them up and gave them a nice brown finish. It made for a quick and easy weeknight dinner with a side of spinach and some caramelized onions and fennel.
Usinger’s is a family owned and operated business located in Milwaukee. They have a ton of good-looking products that I’m looking forward to trying.
Note: they didn’t pay me or ask me to say these nice things, because you know I wouldn’t do that.
Another note: Thanks to everyone who so kindly let me know about the php error at the bottom of my blog. It was a nightmare to try and fix, mostly because my theme was ancient and the developer dropped off the face of the earth. I’ve been fiddling about with it for awhile trying to fix it and today I gave up and adopted a new theme that I hope will remain current for another few years. Let me know if you see any issues or have any problems.
